School custodian charged with theft

Hagerstown Police Department Lt. Rick Johnson said a custodian at Washington County Technical High School was the target of a four-week investigation after an audit revealed a vending machine at the school was nearly $17,000 short over a 17-month period.

The Hagerstown man was charged after police conducted the "controlled money flow experiment," which tracked money that was inside two school machines, Johnson said.

Glenn T. Edwards, 39, of 111 N. Locust St., was charged Wednesday with one count of felony theft scheme, one count of felony theft, one count of theft over $500 and one count of theft under $500.

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Johnson said police served Edwards a criminal summons but did not take him into custody.

Johnson said Edwards became the prime suspect in the disappearance of money from the technical high school machine after members of the police's Criminal Investigations Division met with Washington County Public Schools officials.

Edward became a suspect "when we took all the factors into consideration like how the money was being taken and who had access," he said

A January Washington County Public Schools audit revealed that $16,900 was missing during a period between July 1, 2002, and Nov. 30, 2003, police said in a news release.

Police and the school system conducted surveillance of the machine between Jan. 22 and Feb. 9. They found that of the 88 $1 bills fed into the machine by school officials, 51 $1 bills turned up missing, police said.

On Feb. 11, police fed another $20 in dollar bills into the vending machines and wrote down those bills' serial numbers, police said.

On Feb. 12, investigators found during the execution of a search and seizure warrant that pre-recorded bills from the investigation were in Edward's possession, police allege.